to William Cecil in 1573, Parker defended his collection of manuscripts as part of his duty to preserve and print "such rare and written authors that came to my hands, until the days of King Henry the VIIIth, when the religion began to grow better." With this purpose in mind, Parker claimed to "have within my house in wages, drawers and cutters, painters and limners, writers, and bookbinders." In another letter to Cecil from 1565, Parker described the process of supplementing missing pages of text within his manuscripts by having his skilled scribes imitate the style and layout of other medieval models. Noticing that an early English Psalter of Cecil's (in this case, Parker was describing the Vespasian Psalter) lacked the first psalm, Parker suggested moving a miniature of David with his harp from the 30th folio to the opening of the book and supplying the missing portions in an imitative style "counterfeited in antiquity." Though he had already been collecting manuscripts for many years, Parker received official support from the Privy Council in 1568 to continue his search for important historical and religious documents throughout the country. This letter is now preserved in the Parker library in CCCC MS 114a, p.49. As one of the architects of the Elizabethan Settlement and the modern Church of England, Parker was keenly interested in collecting and preserving manuscripts from Anglo-Saxon England as evidence of an ancient English-speaking church independent of Rome. Parker wished to demonstrate an apostolic succession for the English Church. The original gift from Parker consisted of about 480 manuscripts and around 1000 printed books spanning the 6th–16th centuries. As early as the sixteenth century, this collection was recognised as a unique treasure, and Parker did not bequeath it without any strings. Within the terms of his endowment, Parker stated that if any more than a certain number of books were lost, the rest of the collection would pass first to Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge and then (in the event of any more losses) to Trinity Hall, Cambridge. Every few years, representatives from both of those colleges ceremonially inspect the collection for any losses. Parker placed a similar condition on the silver that he also bequeathed to the college, and these stipulations are part of the reason that Corpus Christi College retains to this day the entirety of the library and the silver collection, as they were unable to